Blameless and With Great Joy

If you have your Bible with you, and I hope you do, I want you to turn to the book of Jude with me.
And I want to start this morning with a little bit of a thought experiment. I want you to imagine
that you go home this afternoon and you get a phone call. Your phone rings. Caller ID says it's the
White House. And you think this has got to be a joke, but you answer it anyway to see what's going
on. And the person calling says, good afternoon, I'm calling you on behalf of the president. He is
requesting your presence tomorrow at the White House for a formal dinner where you will be honored
for your service to our country. This is a formal affair. It's black tie.
There will be 500 people there from both sides of the aisle all coming together to honor you. We're
sending Air Force One to Little Rock tonight. It will pick you up and take you to D.C. You'll be
staying in the Lincoln bedroom at the White House while you're there. And the chef,
by the way, is happy to prepare whatever you would like to have served at this formal banquet in
your honor tomorrow night. The president also will be presenting you with a cash award on behalf of
a grateful nation. $28 million will be given to you tomorrow night. Now,
if that call came this afternoon, you would have a few questions, right? Like your first question
is, do you have the right number? Why are you calling me? What do you think I've done that merits
this? There are a lot of people more deserving than I am. And then you might think,
wait, formal? I don't have anything to wear. to a formal event tomorrow night at the White House.
In fact, just for the purposes of this thought experiment, I want you to imagine that you tell them
you don't have anything to wear and they say it doesn't matter, just come dressed in whatever you
have. And again, since it's already way unbelievable, let's imagine that the only shirt you have to
wear tomorrow night to the formal event at the White House is a white T-shirt with coffee stains
on it, something that looks like this. This is the only shirt you have to wear tomorrow night when
you go to the White House. And the only pants you have to wear to go with your stained T-shirt are
some ratty, ripped, dirty blue jeans that look like this. Okay, that's a trick,
by the way, because these jeans... new off the rack at Saks Fifth Avenue.
And if you had them, they would be the most expensive pants you own because they cost $2,450 to
buy a pair of pants that look like that. Yes, that is insane.
You can get your own jeans and tear them up. Exactly right. A very smart young daughter you're
raising here. But for now, you're gonna show up at the gala at the White House wearing the jeans
and the T-shirt. You're gonna look like this, okay? Everybody else is black tie.
It's formal wear. And you're going to be presented as a guest of honor. When you walk in,
they're going to say, ladies and gentlemen, there's going to be a trumpet fanfare for you. Ladies
and gentlemen, they're going to announce your name. And you walk in in your jeans and your T
-shirt.
Everyone claps and cheers. The Marine Band plays. Lock in on that moment,
just for a second. Politics aside, how would you feel in that moment? If you were there,
knowing you're there to receive your money and your award, but how would you feel?
First of all, it would be pretty surreal. You would be confused. You'd be embarrassed, I'm sure,
by what you're wearing. You'd be thinking, I don't belong here.
Something's wrong here. It'd be a mixture of those things going on. At least it would be for me.
And the reason for this thought experiment this morning is because I think it helps us set up.
What Jude wants us to be imagining and thinking about, preparing for,
as he gets to the end of his letter that we've been looking at for the last three months.
As you know, if you've been here, we've been looking at the book of Jude. It's a warning to
churches in Jude's day and churches in our day that there are false teachers who find their way
into local churches. They slip in unaware. And these churches are leading people away from the
gospel. They are leading a generation. This is the first generation of Christians who have followed
Jesus after his death and resurrection. And Jude, the half-brother of Jesus, is writing this
letter to help people identify who the false teachers are and to keep them from being led astray by
them. And he famously ends this letter with... the two best-known verses from Jude,
which are known as the Jude doxology. It's the climax of this letter. Two verses that are a fitting
climax to everything we've been looking at. And as we saw last week, the doxology has two parts to
it. Verse 24 is about what God is able to do for those who come to him and who trust him,
who believe in him, put their faith in him, follow him. And then, really, there are two parts to
verse 24. They say that God is able to keep you from stumbling and he's able to help you stand or
present you in his own presence. So God is, here's what he does for you.
He keeps you from stumbling along the path and he presents you. Before the glory of God.
And then verse 25 is our response where we ascribe to God as a result of what he's done.
We ascribe to him glory and honor strength. We're going to look at that next Sunday morning on
Christmas Eve in the morning. And I'm going to show you that there's a connection between verse 25
and the message of Christmas. So we'll see that next week. But this morning we'll look at the
second half of verse 24. And before we turn our attention to that, pray again with me, if you
would. Father, we need your spirit now to be at work in this place in our own hearts.
We need to hear from him today. We want him to be our teacher. Speak to us through your word,
by your spirit, and help us not just be hearers of your word, but doers as well. We pray these
things in Jesus' name. Amen. Jude verses 24 and 25,
you follow along as I read these. This is the word of God for the people of God. Now to him who is
able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with
great joy to the only God our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Be glory.
majesty, dominion, and authority before all time and now and forever.
Amen. Amen. May God bless this reading of his word. The grass withers and the flower fades,
but the word of God will last forever. This second half of Jude verse 24 tells us that God is able
to present you, that he's able to present you blameless, that he's able to present you in the
presence of his glory. and that he's able to present you with great joy.
So that's the outline. We're gonna explore each of these thoughts as we work our way through this,
but we're gonna go out of order because I wanna look first at what Jude is referring to when he
talks about you being presented in the presence of his glory. So we're gonna start there first.
And by the way, just so you know, you're gonna need to be moving through your Bible a lot this
morning. We're only looking at 14... words in Jude 24, but we're going to look at a lot of Bible
this morning. So get ready to go a lot of places here. First, so what is the presence of his glory
that Jude is talking about? Now, God is omnipresent. He's everywhere,
but there's a difference between God's presence and his glory being present.
So let me show you what I mean. You know Moses, when he was on Mount Sinai,
receiving the Ten Commandments, he asked God to show him his glory.
Do you remember this? This is in Exodus 33. So if you want to turn to Exodus 33 and look at verse
18, this is in the midst of the Ten Commandments being given.
Exodus 33, 18, Moses said, to God, please show me your glory.
And he said to him, I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my
name, the Lord. And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and will show mercy on whom I
will show mercy. But he said, you cannot see my face for man shall not see my face.
and live. Moses said, show me your glory. God says, I'll show you my goodness and I'll proclaim my
name, but you can't see my face because you'd die if you did. And you know what happens? He tells
Moses to hide his face in the cleft of the rock and the glory of God passes behind him.
And when Moses comes down, he's still radiating the glory of God from his own person.
He has to put a veil over his face so that people can see him. God was present with his people in
the wilderness and he manifested his presence through glimpses of his glory.
So they were led in the wilderness by cloud by day, a pillar of fire by night.
They saw manifestations of God's glory when they woke up every morning and there was quail and
manna on the ground for them. They saw the Red Sea part. They saw water gush out of a rock.
They saw glimpses. of God's glory. But the sustained manifestation of God's glory is so
overwhelming that we can't, in our current state,
see it. That's what God tells Moses. He says, you're not equipped.
If you saw it, you would die. But now wait, you get to the New Testament.
And John describes the incarnation, talks about the birth of Jesus in John 1.14.
And he says, the word became flesh. Look at what he says. The word became flesh and dwelt among us,
and we have seen his glory. as of the only,
glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. So God tells Moses, no one can
see my glory and live. Jesus comes and John says, we beheld his glory. But in the incarnation,
Jesus, as a human being, kept a veil over the full revelation of God's glory.
His glory was, as we sing at Christmas time, veiled in flesh, the Godhead see.
There's a veil over it. We see the glory of God in Jesus through a glass dimly with sunglasses on.
One day we'll see it in full revelation.
And we know that we'll see it in full revelation and that Jesus was keeping it veiled because of
what happened with Jesus and three of his disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration. So this is in
Luke chapter 9. You can turn to Luke chapter 9. I told you we're going to lots of places this
morning. Luke 9 in the New Testament.
Luke is telling about the transfiguration in verse 28. He says, now about eight days after these
sayings, he, Jesus, took with him Peter and John and James and went up to the mountain to pray.
And as Jesus was praying, the appearance of his face was altered and his clothes became dazzling
white. And behold, two men were talking with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke
of his departure. which he was about to accomplish in Jerusalem. And then,
of course, there's a section where Peter says, let's just stay here, but look down at verse 34. As
Peter was saying these things, a cloud came down and overshadowed them. They were afraid as they
entered the cloud, and the voice came out of the cloud saying, this is my son, my chosen one.
Listen to him. This is a manifestation. a pulling back of the veil to the extent that human beings
could see a glimpse of the glory of God. Kent Hughes, the Bible commentator and pastor,
says the glory that was always in the depths of his being rose to the surface that one time in his
earthly life. This was both a glance back into his pre-human glory and a look forward into his
future glory. So God has shown us throughout time images,
reflections, glimpses of his glory. You go back to Jude in verse 24,
both the present experience of God's glory that we have as human beings today,
and we do have the opportunity to see glimpses of God's glory today.
But there is a future experience, and I think Jude has both of them in mind when he says that Jesus
is able to present you blameless before the presence of his glory, both now and in the future,
both in a limited sense today and in a full sense. in the future. If you're a follower of Jesus
today, you are able to experience glimpses of God's glory. You see his power at work in your own
life and in our world. I'm guessing nobody's ever had a Mount of Transfiguration experience where
you saw the flashing light, the blinding light, and Moses and Elijah appeared. But I'm guessing
We've all had moments where we've seen glimpses of God's glory and we've recognized it.
We sing about it when we sing, when through the woods and forest glades I wander and hear the birds
sing sweetly in the trees, when I look down from lofty mountain grandeur and see the brook and feel
the gentle breeze, then sings my soul, my Savior God to thee,
how great thou art. When we look at creation. We see glimpses of God's glory on display.
You see the glory of God on display when a new baby is born. And you see that baby and you see new
life. You see glimpses of the glory of God on display when God takes someone from darkness to light
and there's new spiritual life and you see a transformation in their own life, in your life and in
the lives of others. You see the glory of God on display when you experience being set free from
the bondage to sin in your own life, and you start to experience liberation and victory,
which is not perfect, but as you make those stumbling steps in the right direction,
you're seeing God's hand, his glory on display. In fact, turn to 2 Corinthians 3,
so past the Gospels into the middle of the New Testament, 2 Corinthians chapter 3,
and look at verse 15.
Paul writing to the Corinthians, 2 Corinthians 3.15 says, he's talking about how God's truth,
the truth of his son is being shared with Jews. And he says,
yes, to this day, whenever Moses is read, when they read their Old Testament,
a veil lies over their hearts. But when one turns to the Lord,
the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is,
there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled faith... has taken away the blinders,
the spiritual blinders, beholding the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image
from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord,
who is the Spirit. The point is, when you turn to the Lord, the spiritual blinders are removed.
You're able to behold the glory of God, and increasingly as you grow,
the glory of God is revealed until the day when we will stand before him and see him in full glory
and be able to take it without collapsing in death.
You will know the full glory of God after your sanctification is complete,
and your sanctification is complete when you die.
When we stand in glory, free from the presence of sin in our lives,
then we will experience the fullness of God's glory. We see the scene in Revelation 5 and
Revelation 7 where the saints are around the throne. They see the glory of God on display and they
are singing and praising God because that's what you do when you see his glory on display like
that. Your heart knows nothing else to do. Your heart can't contain itself. It's the picture in
Revelation 20 and 21 where we see the new heavens and the new earth and the fullness of God's glory
is on display. In fact, Revelation says you're not going to need a sun anymore because the
brightness of the glory will make everything so bright. And let me just say,
the presence of the glory of God is the final destination for every human being who lives.
Everyone who has been born will one day stand in the fullness of the glory of God.
The question is, will you stand or will you fall in that day?
Jesus is able to make you stand and not fall.
Jude wants his readers to know they are the called, they are the beloved, they are the kept. Jesus
will come in that day. They will be able to stand in the presence of the glory of God because he is
able to make them stand. That phrase, when it says he is able to present you,
literally it means he is able to make you stand. He has just said he's able to keep you from
falling and he's able to make you stand in the presence of God. He can keep you from stumbling and
make you stand in the presence of God's glory. And I want to take a few minutes with that.
Jude says he is able to make you stand, to present you, to make you presentable.
I'm going to give you a little quick pop culture history lesson this morning. Just one part.
For seven seasons on TV from 1955 until 1962,
there was a weekly program that appeared first on CBS, then on NBC.
The series was called... Hitchcock Presents. Now, I'm sure many of you know Alfred Hitchcock was a
celebrated movie director. He directed movies like The Birds and Psycho and North by Northwest and
Rear Window. But this TV series, and there were 268 episodes over that seven-year period.
That's a lot of TV.
They didn't have the same actors. There was no continuing storyline. It was just one story, a
different story the next week. Some of you are old enough to remember having seen this. But for
those of you who haven't, I'll show you. Here is Alfred Hitchcock introducing the very first of
these episodes back in 1955. Watch this.
It's called The March of the Marionettes.
Good evening. I'm Alfred Hitchcock. And tonight I'm presenting the first in a series of stories of
suspense and mystery called, oddly enough, Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
I shall not act in these stories, but will only make appearances.
Something in the nature of an accessory before and after the fact. To give the title to those of
you who can't read, and to tidy up afterwards for those who don't understand the endings.
Tonight's playlet is really a sweet little story. It is called Revenge.
It will follow...
Oh dear, I see the actors won't be ready for another 60 seconds. However, thanks to our sponsor's
remarkable foresight, we have a message that will fit in here nicely.
Went to the commercial, that's all. I know you want to go home and watch the rest of it, but here's
the thing about Alfred Hitchcock Presents. 268 episodes, as he said, he does not appear in them. In
fact, he did not write or direct most of them. He was not involved in most of them. He just came on
at the beginning and said, here's the story and came on at the end and said, this is what it was
about. And that's why it was called Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Other people did all the creative
stuff, but he was the gatekeeper. He was the presenter. You couldn't get your story on Alfred
Hitchcock Presents. unless he did the presenting, unless he let you in and put his stamp of
approval on what it was that was going to be presented. Jude said Jesus is the only one who is able
to present you before the glory of God's presence. He's the only one who can make that possible,
who can make you stand in his presence. As I said earlier, we're all going to find ourselves in the
presence of God one day. But if Jesus is not the one presenting you on that day,
you will not be standing for long.
So back to the thought experiment we started with this morning. For you to get past the security
guards at the White House, to make it into the East Room dressed with that T-shirt and those blue
jeans on, somebody's got to give you clearance. Somebody's got to say, no, he's allowed.
He can come in here. This is for him. You would not be able to enter much less stand without prior
approval. Jesus, Jude says, is the only one who is able to present you, to bring you in,
to make you stand in the presence of the glory of God. You don't get in without him clearing you
and without him supporting you. But it's more than that. It's not just that he has cleared you and
is presenting you because the only way you can stand in the presence of the glory of God, you have
to first be
sinless. You can't stand before, the thing that keeps you from being able to stand in the presence
of God's glory is your sin. Your sin would kill you in the presence of God's glory. It would
condemn you, convict you. So you can't stand there until you are sinless.
Let me show you this in two Psalms. So turn with me to Psalm 15. Psalm 15.
This is a short five-verse Psalm. It's written by David. And he says,
O Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill?
Who gets in to where you are, God? That's the question in this psalm. Here's the answer.
He who walks blameless and does what is right and speaks truth in his heart and does not slander
with his tongue.
Question at the beginning of the psalm, who can dwell with God? Answer, not you, not me.
Anybody who would say, oh, I can get in. Look, I've done all of those things. I've kept God's
standard. No, we don't meet the requirements. Now turn back a few pages to Psalm 5.
Psalm 5 verse 4. The psalmist explains why we can't get in.
He says, for you are not a God who delights in wickedness.
Evil may not dwell with you. The boastful.
For you to stand in the presence of God, your sin has to be done away with in some way.
On your own, you can't stand. Jesus is able to present you because he's able to do something with
your sin. He's able to clean you up. In fact, I want to spend a few minutes with this idea,
the idea that Jesus is able to present you blameless, spotless,
faultless, without blemish. The word here is the word that is applied over and over again in the
Old Testament to sacrificial animals. The phrase without spot or blemish.
shows up 46 times in the Pentateuch describing sacrificial animals. No spot,
no blemish. You bring a lamb that has a spot or a blemish that is deformed or that is disfigured in
some way, that does not qualify as a sacrifice. It has to be a perfect spotless lamb in order for
that lamb to be sacrificed. And Paul picks this idea up in the New Testament. You don't have to
turn there, but Ephesians 5.27 says that God does what he does so that, actually he's talking
about husbands loving their wives because he says we're showing a picture of Christ in the church.
Jesus sacrifices so that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle
or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish. That's, again, a look back at the
sacrificial system. Colossians 1, you who were once alienated and hostile in mind doing evil deeds,
that's all of us, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death in order to present you
holy and blameless and above reproach before him. 1 Thessalonians 3,
that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before God our Father at the coming of our
Lord Jesus with all his saints. The Bible is clear on this. The sacrificial system points to this.
The sinful cannot stand in the presence of a holy God. Only the spotless,
blameless, the one without blemish, are able to stand. This part's important.
You can't clean yourself up to be able to stand there.
Only Jesus is able to present you blameless. R.C. Sproul said this. He made this observation years
ago. He says, we have a generation of people who think they can stand before the judgment seat of
God despite their sins.
They minimize, trivialize, think it's not that big a deal. God grades on the curve.
He's not as holy as we think he is. And they think my sin...
just look the other way. No, something has to be done with your sin for you to be able to stand
blameless before him.
And I'm going to show you what God does with your sin so that you can stand blameless before God.
Because anybody here who say, I'm ready to go, I'm blameless. Well, some of you would say,
I am positionally, but I'm not experientially. That's the right answer. But look at this.
Turn to Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament. Malachi chapter 3.
This is so good. Malachi 3 begins this way. Behold, God speaking,
I send my messenger and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly
come to his temple and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming,
says the Lord of hosts. Now, just stop there for a second. Who's the messenger that's being
referred to here? It's John the Baptist. This is God in Malachi saying,
I'm going to send a messenger who will prepare the way for the one, the Lord who is coming into his
temple. Who's the Lord coming into his temple? It's the Lord Jesus coming into his temple. This is,
I believe, a reference both to his first coming when Jesus came to the temple in Jerusalem and his
second coming when he will come to his holy temple, which is the people of God. Because we are the
new temple.
But then look at Malachi's question in verse 2. But who can endure the day of his coming?
And who can stand when he appears? Same question that Jude is addressing here.
And Malachi tells us how Jesus is able to make us stand. He is like a refiner's fire and like a
fuller's soap. He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver. So let me stop just so you know
what a refiner and a fuller are.
So the way that you would refine metals back in the day, if you had gold that you had taken from
the rock, you would put the gold in some kind of a pot,
a cauldron, and you would heat it to a high temperature. and the gold would melt, and all the not
gold would come to the top. So the gold would melt down, and the impurities,
the rock pieces, anything else that was impure, that would rise to the top, and a refiner who would
do this process would then skim the impurities off the top of the gold and toss it out so that all
that's left is pure, fine gold. That's what a refiner does.
is a laundromat who takes dirty clothes or dirty lambswool and takes it out and scrubs it clean.
And in their day, they did not have washing machines. They did not even have soaps or chemicals.
So they would use an alkaline lye-based solution made often with ash to try to scrub out.
the impurities so that a white robe that had a stain on it could be made clean again. That's what a
fuller does. Malachi says that the one who is coming into his temple will be like a refiner and
like a fuller. He will melt away the impurities and refine it to pure gold.
He will scrub out the spots and the stains and leave the garment white. He takes away the power of
sin, that's the metaphor, through refining and cleansing. In fact, we ought to pause here for just
a minute and note that the primary way that God refines and purifies and cleanses us is through
trials. Refining is when the heat gets turned up.
To be a fuller is to be scrubbed abrasively.
Growth in godliness happens most often in the midst of trials and hardship.
When life is good, you're not growing as much. Think about it. If you go to the gym and you want to
increase your strength, your agility, you go to work out, to lift weight.
If you go to the gym and say, yeah, I'm going to sit in the recliner and have a pina colada, just
being at the gym is not going to make you any stronger. The only way to get stronger is to put
tension against the muscle. And God says the same thing. The only way you're going to get
spiritually stronger is for there to be adversity that puts tension against your muscle. He is like
a refiner and a fuller. that helps you grow in godliness. Back to what Malachi says,
verse three, he says, he will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver. He will purify the sons of
Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the
Lord. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old,
as in former years. In other words, we've got to deal with the impurities before the offering is
acceptable. We've got to clear away the sin before what is offered to the glory of God can stand.
Now I should point out here, it's important, stay with me on this little theological excursus we're
going to take here, but this is an area where we would differ from our Roman Catholic friends. We
believe that what the Bible teaches is that... declares you to be righteous and blameless in his
sight when you are committed to Christ. When you turn and believe and follow him,
God declares you in that moment to be in right standing before God.
You can stand in his presence because of the righteousness of Christ.
And then the Bible says you will begin to manifest. the good works and the sifting off of the
impurities, your life will begin to conform to the image of Christ. You will begin to become the
person that God has declared you to be.
You're saved, which is important, by the righteousness of Christ, which is imputed to you,
not because of anything you do, but because of God's grace and mercy toward you. And then you grow
in righteousness and godliness. That is evidence. that the good work that God has begun in you is
being completed, that you are his child. It's the evidence of salvation. It's not the cause of your
salvation. It's the consequence of your salvation. Your good works, evidence that it's real.
The Roman Catholic Church teaches something opposite. They teach that when you become a member of
the church, God begins the growing process in you, the spiritual growing process,
and your job, they say, is to cooperate with God's work in you as you begin your salvation journey.
But they say God cannot declare you to be righteous in his sight until you already are.
In other words, they say God's not going to call you righteous until all those impurities are
washed away. You have to be righteous on your own in order for God to call you righteous.
With help from Jesus, but it's all on you.
So the righteousness of Christ, this perfect obedience to the law in Catholic thinking is not
something that is imputed to you or credited to your account. It's something that's grafted into
you. They call it being infused with God's grace rather than his grace being imputed to you.
But Jude is right here saying, he's making the case that Jesus alone is able to make you blameless
before God. It's not your work that makes that happen. It's what Jesus does.
in and through you. It's actually his own righteousness, what's called an alien righteousness,
that's outside of you that God looks at and declares you righteous because of the work of Christ.
Now, this is a consequential difference in theology. It's a significant difference in theology.
And I will just say this. Anytime we talk about the differences between Protestantism and
Catholicism, we need to understand that most of our Catholic friends don't know these things.
Most of them have grown up in the church. They're trying to do their best. So we have to show grace
in our understanding of this. But we're looking at the difference between what the Catholic Church
teaches and what the Protestants believe about what the Bible teaches.
And here's the verse that for me seals the deal and makes it clear that it's not our growth in
godliness that makes us presentable before God, but it is Christ's righteousness imputed to us that
makes us presentable before God. It's one of my favorite verses in the Bible, 2 Corinthians 5, 21.
It's one of those you ought to have memorized. It says, for our sake, he made him to be sin who
knew no sin, that in him we might become the righteousness of God. That's where your righteousness
comes from. Now you're growing in grace and godliness, but it's not your growth in grace and
godliness that God says now you're acceptable. You're acceptable because the righteousness of
Christ has been imputed to you. And that's what Jude is pointing us to.
Our sins are transferred to him. He didn't earn our sin. God imputes our sin to him.
He bears it. And his righteousness is imputed to us. We can't earn it.
We bear it without having to do anything. And this is how Jesus is able to present us blameless in
the presence of the glory of God. Because he lived a life of perfect obedience to God's law, always
doing the will of the Father in every circumstance. And then he transferred the credit that he had
earned. His righteousness is transferred to you and me. You and I cannot stand in God's presence
until we are without spot, without blemish, blameless and faultless. Which means past sins have to
be addressed. Jesus is the refiner and the fuller who will cleanse all of that. He removes the
dross and washes clean our filthy garments. And he gives us credit for his perfect obedience.
No other way this can happen. There's no self-help method. There's no bargain you can make with
God. You can't pull yourself up by your own spiritual bootstraps. To be able to stand in the
presence of God's glory, you must have the righteousness of Christ imputed to your account.
What happens to those who don't have that? You go back to Malachi chapter 3, and here's what God
says in verse 5. Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the
sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the
hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust aside the
sojourner and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts. You don't want God to be a swift witness
testifying against you about these things. You want him to present you blameless. And Jesus says,
follow me and I'll do that.
Jude wants his readers to hear this great good news. Jesus is able to present you blameless in the
presence of God's glory. He's able to make you faultless standing in his presence.
Imagine that. He's able to forgive, to pardon, to wash away, to cleanse you from all
unrighteousness. You're here this morning aware of the weight of your sin,
the shame of your sin. You know it's a... to you as it was for Pilgrim when he carried it around on
his back in Pilgrim's Progress. And the Bible declares God is able to remove that from you and take
it away. And there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ.
This brings us to the last part of verse 24. We don't just stand blameless in the presence of God.
We stand there with great joy. We won't take a lot of time here, but it's pretty clear this should
not be overlooked. On the day when Jesus presents you blameless in the presence of God's glory,
when you and I are standing blameless in God's sight, that will be a day unlike any day you have
ever known in life. A day of joy unlike any joy you have ever experienced.
Not just... that comes when you realize that you don't have to face God's righteous wrath because
of your sin, but real joy knowing that you will be in his presence as his adopted son or daughter,
a much-loved child of the king forever. We have all experienced joy in this life.
I hope over the next eight days as you get together with family or friends and as you celebrate the
birth of Jesus, I hope there is joy in that season. This should be a season of joy.
We sang about joy this morning. We lit the candle of joy this morning.
But this joy that you will experience or that we experience in this life, it will not compare to
the joy that awaits us. The joy when you stand blameless before the Lord of glory,
welcomed in to eternity with him. Psalm 16 says just that.
You make known to me. The psalmist says the path of life. In your presence,
there is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
Back in 1998, that was 25 years ago. Wow, 25 years ago,
we got invited, Marianne and I got invited to go to a camp in East Texas,
just outside Tyler, a camp called Pine Cove. They were doing a family camp, and I was invited to
speak at that camp. And so we went and spent a week at that camp.
And the guys who were leading worship at camp that summer were guys who, I think they were from A
&M. They had been at Texas A&M, and they were working at camp, and they were worship leaders. And
they taught us a song while we were there that... had heard before.
It was new to all of us. It was one they had just started singing in their last semester at
college. It was from a Texas band that had started touring through the college towns of Texas,
a song written by a guy who had grown up just outside of Dallas in Greenville,
Texas. He was in his mid to late 20s, and he'd started this band that was touring from campus to
campus, and they were selling their CDs out of the trunk.
So the guys at Pine Cove said, we want you to learn this new song that we've just learned that we
think you'll really like. And I was struck as they played this song for us for the first time,
I was struck by how evocative the picture was as they taught us to sing,
I can only imagine what it will be like when I walk by your side.
I can only imagine what my eyes will see. When your face is before me,
I can only imagine, surrounded by your glory, what will my heart feel?
Will I dance for you, Jesus? In awe of you, be still. Will I stand in your presence?
To my knees will I fall? Will I sing hallelujah? Will I be able to speak at all? I can only imagine
when that day comes and I find myself standing in the sun. I can only imagine.
When all I will do is forever, forever worship you. I can only imagine. I can only imagine.
Now, to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and present you blameless before the presence of
his glory with great joy. To him be glory and honor,
majesty and power. Pray with me. Father.
We rejoice together this morning in the good news that our sin is forgiven,
that you declare us righteous because of the finished work of Christ, that we can stand in your
presence, not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to your mercy.
Lord, we thank you for your grace. We thank you that we have that standing and we rejoice with
great joy and we look forward to the time. when our joy will be greater and fuller and more
complete.
Lord, for any who are here this morning who would not today be able to stand in the presence of
your glory because their sins have not been addressed, because they've not surrendered their lives
to you. Lord, would you by your spirit draw them to yourself, open their eyes, help them to see
their need for salvation, help them to reach out and find it in you.
Draw them, we pray. Save them, we pray,
and help each of us to walk in the knowledge that we are blameless in your sight and to walk with
great joy. We pray in Jesus' name.